Medalist Woods Eliminated in Quarterfinals

Marrisa Dodd, who knocked off two opponents Friday to reach Saturday's final, keeps a bead on her second shot on the 10th hole. (John Mummert/USGA)

By
Christina Lance, USGAJuly 1, 2011

Bandon, Ore. – Brianna Do of Vietnam, and Marissa Dodd of
Allen, Texas, will meet in Saturday’s 36-hole championship final of the 2011
U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links, being conducted at the 6,098-yard, par-71
Old Macdonald layout at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.

Both players will be competing in their first USGA
championship final and have received full exemptions into the 2011 U.S. Women’s
Amateur.

Do, who was born in southern California
but is representing her parents’ home country of Vietnam this week, capitalized on
Park’s early bogeys on the first and second holes to grab a quick 2-up lead.

Fighting a brutal afternoon wind that whipped across Old
Macdonald at nearly 30 miles per hour, Do was able to hold the lead until the
par-4 10th hole, when her bogey took the match back to all square. However,
Do’s key 15-foot birdie on the par-4 14th gave her the lead for good.

“The wind picked up [this afternoon] and it was a lot more
difficult,” said Do, who was named to the All-Pacific-10 Conference second team
in 2010. “I had way more birdies in the morning than I had this round. We were
halving holes with bogeys, but this morning I had to halve a hole with birdies
and pars to stay in it. It was kind of a different course out here with the
wind.”

Do dispatched fellow UCLA Bruin Stephanie Kono, 20, of Honolulu, Hawaii,
by a 2-up margin in the morning’s quarterfinal round.

“Kono’s
a great player and I knew she was going to be a tough match,” said Do, who
defeated Kono, a 2010 USA Curtis Cup Team member, in the third round of last
year’s Women’s Amateur Public Links. “I’m happy I won, but at the same time I
wish we both could have moved on.

Dodd, whose only previous match-play experience was a
first-round loss at the 2010 U.S. Girls’ Junior, trailed early in her match
with Lua, a member of the winning 2010 USA Curtis Cup Team who was competing in
her 20th USGA individual championship.

“My swing was a little off going into the first two holes,”
said Dodd, who has committed to play for Wake Forest
University in the fall.
“I think things first started to turn around on the third hole. I almost drove
the green with a hybrid, so that kind of got my juices flowing a little bit.

“About the sixth or seventh hole, I started to get really
confident and in a groove. I just felt like I started playing back to my game.”

Dodd certainly made the match interesting when her approach shot
to the par-4 10th hole flew 100 yards beyond the hole location and onto the
fifth green. However, Dodd did not let the adversity affect her play, despite
losing the hole.

“I’ve got a real attitude of letting things roll off my back
and forgetting about the previous shot,” said Dodd, who earlier put that
attitude to good use after nearly losing a 5-up lead in her third-round 2-up
win over Prima
Thammaraks.

Until Friday morning Woods, a senior at Wake Forest,
had experienced few problems along the Scottish-inspired links at Bandon Trails
and Old Macdonald. Calling Friday’s match the worst golf she’d played all
summer, Woods pointed to her ongoing swing struggles
as her ultimate downfall.

“I just wasn’t really feeling my swing,” said Woods, the
niece of nine-time USGA champion Tiger Woods. “I wasn’t hitting it well this
morning, so when I was out of the course, I was trying to find that one swing
thought that would click and make me feel comfortable about there. But I never
really was comfortable.”

The
2011 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links, which is being conducted concurrently at
Bandon Dunes with the U.S. Amateur Public Links, concludes with the 36-hole
championship final on Saturday at Old Macdonald.

The
U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links is one of 13 championships conducted annually
by the United States Golf Association, 10 of which are strictly for
amateurs.

Christina Lance is a coordinator of championship communications for the
USGA. Email questions or comments to clance@usga.org.

Results

Bandon,
Ore. – Results from Friday’s quarterfinal round of match play at the 2011 U.S.
Women’s Amateur Public Links, conducted at 6,098-yard, par-71 Old Macdonald at
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort:

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